New Music: Battles, Boom Bip

Between "Atlas" hyping up the kids and a few guiding lights suggesting Mirrored is already on their year-end best-of lists, absorbing the influx of info for Battles can be difficult. While Brian Hollon flies quietly below the radar with a brand new EP, the four men of the former soldier on, date by date, hoping to win over the masses with their unique brand of futurist-pop. Is the hype justified? Would you be better off buying Boom Bip? Let's do this.













Battles - Tonto (Warp 2007)

Battles - Mirrored / Warp

Let me first start off by exorcising some demons of memory: Battles abruptly entered my life in December of 2004 with nothing more than a quick call from, of all people, Jordan Redmond:

"Dude, Battles is playing down here in an hour," he said to me.
"Well I'm eating up here. I'll think about it." I like being wishy-washy.
"You won't regret it," were his parting words.

By the grace of God, I didn't have much else happening that night beyond trying to entertain an ex-girlfriend. So we go down to New Brookland Tavern and sure enough, eight people were in attendance for what remains to this day one of my favorite live shows. It was a visceral experience, Tyondai Braxton's electronic trickery on a glowing iBook coupled with John Stanier's really-hi-hat percussion piercing my ears with a rendition of "SZ2" that I still recall even now.

That said, I did not listen to Battles passionately. I did not play them often on my radio show. History That Has No Effect did not suddenly get thrown in my CD player constantly. At that point, being completely satisfied by a live show and playing "SZ2" or "TRAS3" every now and again was enough. For two years, I lived this way: vaguely fascinated but not overly enthused.

Then came "Atlas." When Pitchfork broke that video, the race was on and every Battles fan that had been in the woodwork suddenly came out with an opinion: Was it a huge Focus piss-take, the math-rock album of the year or simply the album of the year? I liked "Atlas" alright but was not totally blown away and only mildly enamored with the pitch-shifted vocals. It wasn't much to make a fuss over, was it? Shortly before going to see them live again in March, I decided to find out for myself. While "It's fucking Battles" works on some of my more trusting friends, I recognize you may not take me at face-value. So first, the verdict. It's taken five paragraphs, but here's what you've come to see: Mirrored is one of the best albums of the year.

What about the structure of these eleven songs makes it so good? "Race: In" starts off about how you'd expect a typical Battles song to go (whatever that means)... Except, as already mentioned, the breakthrough is in the vocals: Avant-garde journeyman Braxton is putting vocoders and warped effects (No pun intended) to good use as the group coagulates under the repetition that signals the hallmark of lesser math-rock bands. A lot has been made of the vocals, but I think it's important to note that the tasteful application of words often totally incomprehensible renders anything human in this pastiche of carefully constructed notes and rhythms moot; sort of like a My Bloody Valentine Effect with a less ambiguous delivery, the vocals become just another instrument and yet another layer in the precision of the songs. The album version of "Atlas" is, though longer, more rewarding than the single precisely because it once again showcases the newly rediscovered magic of Braxton's vocal manipulations while still leaving in the make-ups and breakdowns that make every climax in a Battles song so awesome.

From most places that I've read, "Atlas" remains the clear standout for many people. "Leyendecker" is one candidate that begs to differ, sparse and hollow in its lack of guitar aggression but lush in a descending keyboard line and reverse orchestration. It's not very long and doesn't provide the drama of "Atlas" but it does highlight an example of why Battles are so good: With almost nothing to work with beyond the simple keys and (relatively) straightforward drumwork of Stanier, the band makes a song that is utterly fascinating if for no other reason than Braxton once again adding an unorthodox vocal melody that you'll find yourself struggling to hum.

But if "Leyendecker" is the minimalist masterpiece of the record and a highlight in a first-half full of highlights, "Tonto" is the futurist masterpiece XLR8R alluded to and Ferruccio Busoni never made. "Tonto" might actually be the band's best ever song; so sublime is its construction and execution that it essentially sums up the band in just under eight minutes. Futurists were concerned with music deconstructing its past influences to reveal something new and raw. Battles don't necessarily abhor the staid traditions of math-rock forefathers like Don Caballero or Lynx, but they aren't sticking to the plan. Stanier's astounding drum bits will have listeners naturally gyrating to the beats, but Ian Williams plays on his laptop as much as Braxton these days and his guitar loops and electronic tinges add the element that suggest technological advances and forward-thinking futurists were so obsessed with. The horns cloaked under the mighty guitar riffs that dominate the middle of "Tonto" are a perfect example of this, unnoticeably subtle in application and yet necessary to add that extra bit of fuzz in the headphones that make Dave Konopka's guitars sound just that much more menacing. And then, just as aggressively as it comes, the riff dies and the song begins its long, unraveling outro.

In only one listen I had decided which song was my favorite, but while all my yapping has been about the first half, the Brooklyn quartet know how to finish an album. More "difficult" pieces are tucked away on the dark side ("Prismism" is the prime example), but despite its less immediate songs, Mirrored does not feel unbalanced on repeated listens. In fact, it feels as balanced and propellant as a first official Battles full-length could. More intriguingly, Mirrored could the the musical paradigm of the futurist movement a century on from its birth. I know that sounds academic, but don't let the stuffy analysis dissuade you: Mirrored has the sensibility to appeal to the basest Helmet fan as much as the high-minded English academic. Everyone has a chance to let this record win them over.

Also, it's fucking Battles.













Boom Bip - The Pinks (Lex 2007)

Boom Bip - Sacchrilege EP / Lex

In stark contrast, Boom Bip has been down a considerably different path. From the crumbling metropolis of Cincinnati, young Brian Hollon made a name for himself on the decks at parties along McMililan Street and elsewhere around the University of Cincinnati's campus. Art history wasn't going to get him much beyond a teaching or curating gig, but Hollon was never concerned with that to begin with; even in the early days it was music that was clearly taking hold of him. Though he'd had a few releases prior to the turn of the millennium, it was 2000's DoseOne collaboration Circles that brought him to the forefront. Packed full of ideas, Hollon scored a John Peel session out of it and basically built himself a reputation enough for his first proper full-length, 2002's Seed to Sun. Something like eight releases since (including 2005's debated Blue Eyed in the Red Room) has proven he hasn't lost his pursuit of the perfect beats despite a relocation to LA.

What does the Sacchrilege EP say about where he stands now? The easy answer is that all that noise coming from the other side of the world in the City of Lights has had its effect on at least one resident in the City of Angels. Indeed, Sacchrilege is pure 80s kitsch with the beauty of big-Banger beats Ed would be proud of. "Snook Adis" is the first indication that this newest direction will fly along not with the momentum of a futurist locomotive but with the blood-red Maranello fury of a Testarossa on autodrive. Like the pulsing dynamism of a bad 80s teen flick's montage sequence, "Snook Adis" winks its way through four minutes of retro electro.

"Rat Tail" is similar but more succinct, the same big thumps that have gotten indie kids all over the world to dance working a similar magic here. It's also probably the weakest point of this quintet of songs, for "Coogi Sweater" featuring Ali Lee (whom I can find very little about, except that her monotone is perfect for the Moroder-induced synth lines this song rides its rails on) is pure Italodisco as straight as the faces of the people who propagated this kind of stuff in 1978.

But if "Coogi Sweater" is the Italodisco decadence of Baia Degli Angeli, "The Pinks" arrives with a punk-funk cowbell the DFA would be proud of to promptly declare that it's on, that there's no more playing around with mere Chinese Revenge leftovers. This one's a bright, sparkling piece of music that will electrify any listener willing to leave behind the blow for five minutes and just enjoy Boom Bip's wizardry. I don't know if the French have been importing the goods to Hollon to see what happens, but if Boom Bip is just experimenting with some deep Italodisco and frog-tech then maybe it's Boom Bip who's the experiment here and not just this EP.

"One of Eleven" tidily wraps up this EP with a nod in Berlin's direction as the airy synths and micro-sounds pop steadily throughout the song's duration before a dominant descending synth line takes the song out of its final two minutes and my whitened nose finally ends its Oreck impression. This song is still heavily indebted to the French and Italians, but the Germans manage to nudge their way in at the last moment for a curious bookend to Boom Bip's latest. His output is extraordinary, but that also sometimes means that his quality suffers; no such worries for Brian Hollon or his fans here. Like Mirrored, Sacchrilege is the distillation process of decades of fine-tuning from a variety of sources in music's past. Though one's clearly deconstructing more than the other, both offer something fresh in the face of high expectations and extensive histories. Conclusion: Get them. You won't regret it.